Rothschild family
The Rothschild family (/ˈrɒθ(s)tʃaɪld/ ROTH(S)-chylde German: [ˈʁoːt.ʃɪlt]) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish noble banking family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire, who established his banking business in the 1760s.[2] Unlike most previous court factors, Rothschild managed to bequeath his wealth and established an international banking family through his five sons,[3] who established businesses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Naples. The family was elevated to noble rank in the Holy Roman Empire and the United Kingdom.[4][5] The family's documented history starts in 16th century Frankfurt; its name is derived from the family house, Rothschild, built by Isaak Elchanan Bacharach in Frankfurt in 1567.
"House of Rothschild" redirects here. For the film, see The House of Rothschild.Rothschild
Western Europe (mainly United Kingdom, France, and Germany)[1]
Rothschild (German): 'red shield'
1760s (1577)
Elchanan Rothschild (b. 1577)
- Freiherr von Rothschild (1822)
- Baronet, of Tring Park (1847)
- Baron Rothschild (1885)
Concordia, Integritas, Industria (Latin for 'Harmony, Integrity, Industry')
During the 19th century, the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world, as well as in modern world history.[6][7][8] The family's wealth declined over the 20th century, and was divided among many descendants.[9] Today, their interests cover a diverse range of fields, including financial services, real estate, mining, energy, agriculture, winemaking, and nonprofits.[10][11] Many examples of the family's rural architecture exist across northwestern Europe. The Rothschild family has frequently been the subject of conspiracy theories, many of which have antisemitic origins.[12]
The first member of the family who was known to use the name "Rothschild" was Isaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577. The name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild (with the old spelling "th"), meaning "at the red shield", in reference to the house where the family lived for many generations (in those days, houses were designated not by numbers, but by signs displaying different symbols or colours). A red shield can still be seen at the centre of the Rothschild coat of arms. The family's ascent to international prominence began in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild (born circa 1710),[13] a money changer who had traded with the Prince of Hesse. Born in the "Judengasse", the ghetto of Frankfurt, Mayer developed a finance house and spread his empire by installing each of his five sons in the five main European financial centres to conduct business. The Rothschild coat of arms contains a clenched fist with five arrows symbolising the five dynasties established by the five sons of Mayer Rothschild, in a reference to Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth." The family motto appears below the shield: Concordia, Integritas, Industria (Unity, Integrity, Industry).[14]
Paul Johnson writes "[T]he Rothschilds are elusive. There is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them... A woman who planned to write a book entitled Lies about the Rothschilds abandoned it, saying: 'It was relatively easy to spot the lies, but it proved impossible to find out the truth.'" Johnson writes that, unlike the court factors of earlier centuries, who had financed and managed European noble houses, but often lost their wealth through violence or expropriation, the new kind of international bank created by the Rothschilds was impervious to local attacks. Their assets were held in financial instruments, circulating through the world as stocks, bonds and debts. Changes made by the Rothschilds allowed them to insulate their property from local violence: "Henceforth their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mob, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs."[15] Johnson argued that their fortune was generated to the greatest extent by Nathan Mayer Rothschild in London; however, more recent research by Niall Ferguson indicates that greater and equal profits also were realised by the other Rothschild dynasties, including James Mayer de Rothschild in Paris, Carl Mayer von Rothschild in Naples and Amschel Mayer Rothschild in Frankfurt.[16]
Another essential part of Mayer Rothschild's strategy for success was to keep control of their banks in family hands, allowing them to maintain full secrecy about the size of their fortunes. In about 1906, the Jewish Encyclopedia noted: "The practice initiated by the Rothschilds of having several brothers of a firm establish branches in the different financial centres was followed by other Jewish financiers, like the Bischoffsheims, Pereires, Seligmans, Lazards and others, and these financiers by their integrity and financial skill obtained credit not alone with their Jewish confrères, but with the banking fraternity in general. By this means, Jewish financiers obtained an increasing share of international finance during the middle and last quarter of the 19th century. The head of the whole group was the Rothschild family..." It also says: "Of more recent years, non-Jewish financiers have learned the same cosmopolitan method, and, on the whole, the control is now rather less than more in Jewish hands than formerly."[17]
Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with carefully arranged marriages, often between first- or second-cousins (similar to royal intermarriage). By the late 19th century, however, almost all Rothschilds had started to marry outside the family, usually into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties.[18]
His sons were:
The German family name "Rothschild" is pronounced [ˈʁoːt.ʃɪlt] in German, unlike /ˈrɒθ(s)tʃaɪld/ in English. The surname "Rothschild" is rare in Germany.[19]
Families by country:
The five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild were elevated to the Austrian nobility by Emperor Francis I of Austria, and they were all granted the Austrian hereditary title of Freiherr (baron) on 29 September 1822.[20] The British branch of the family was elevated by Queen Victoria, who granted the hereditary title of baronet (1847)[21] and later the hereditary peerage title of Baron Rothschild (1885).[22]
Rothschild family banking businesses pioneered international high finance during the industrialisation of Europe and were instrumental in supporting railway systems across the world and in complex government financing for projects such as the Suez Canal. From 1895 through 1907 they loaned nearly $450,000,000 (equivalent to $14,700,000,000 in 2023[31]) to European governments.[32] During the 19th century, the family bought up a large proportion of the property in Mayfair, London.[33]
The Rothschild family was directly involved in the independence of Brazil from Portugal in the early 19th century. Upon an agreement, the Brazilian government should pay a compensation of two million pounds sterling to the Kingdom of Portugal to accept Brazil's independence.[30] N M Rothschild & Sons was pre-eminent in raising this capital for the government of the newly formed Empire of Brazil on the London market. In 1825, Nathan Rothschild raised £2,000,000, and indeed was probably discreetly involved in the earlier tranche of this loan which raised £1,000,000 in 1824.[30][34] Part of the price of Portuguese recognition of Brazilian independence, secured in 1825, was that Brazil should take over repayment of the principal and interest on a £1,500,000 loan made to the Portuguese government in 1823 by N M Rothschild & Sons.[30] A correspondence from Samuel Phillips & Co. in 1824 suggests the close involvement of the Rothschilds in the occasion.
Major 19th-century businesses founded with Rothschild family capital include:
The family funded Cecil Rhodes in the creation of the African colony of Rhodesia. From the late 1880s onwards, the family took over control of the Rio Tinto mining company.
The Japanese government approached the London and Paris families for funding during the Russo-Japanese War. The London consortium's issue of Japanese war bonds would total £11.5 million (at 1907 currency rates; £1.08 billion in 2012 currency terms).[36]
The name of Rothschild became synonymous with extravagance and great wealth; and the family was renowned for its art collecting, for its palaces, as well as for its philanthropy. By the end of the century, the family owned, or had built, at the lowest estimates, 41 palaces, of a scale and luxury perhaps unparalleled even by the richest royal families.[24] The British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George claimed, in 1909, that Nathan, Lord Rothschild was the most powerful man in Britain.[6][37]
Niles' Weekly Register, Volume 49 had the following to say about the Rothschilds' influence on international high finance in 1836:
Changes to family fortunes
The Neapolitan Rothschilds was the first branch of the family to decline when revolution broke out and Giuseppe Garibaldi captured Naples on 7 September 1860 and set up a provisional Italian government. Because of the family's close political connections with Austria and France, Adolphe Carl von Rothschild was caught in a delicate position. He chose to take temporary sanctuary in Gaeta with the last Neapolitan king, Francis II of the Two Sicilies. However, the Rothschild branches in London, Paris, and Vienna were not prepared nor willing to financially support the deposed king. With the ensuing unification of Italy, and the mounting tension between Adolph and the rest of the family, the Naples house closed in 1863 after forty-two years in business.
In 1901, the German branch closed its doors after more than a century in business following the death of Wilhelm Rothschild with no male heirs. It was not until 1989 that the family returned to Germany, when N M Rothschild & Sons, the British branch, plus Bank Rothschild AG, the Swiss branch, set up a representative banking office in Frankfurt.
By the start of the 20th century, the introduction of national taxation systems had ended the Rothschilds' policy of operating with a single set of commercial account records, which resulted in the various branches gradually going their own separate ways as independent banks. The system of the five brothers and their successor sons all but disappeared by World War I.[39]
The rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s led to a precarious situation for the Austrian Rothschilds under the annexation of Austria in 1938 when the family was pressured to sell its banking operation at a fraction of its real worth. While other Rothschilds had escaped the Nazis, Louis Rothschild was imprisoned for a year and only released after a substantial ransom was paid by his family. After Louis was allowed to leave the country in March 1939, the Nazis placed the firm of S M von Rothschild under compulsory administration. Nazi officers and senior staff from Austrian museums also emptied the Rothschild family estates of all their valuables. Following the war, the Austrian Rothschilds were unable to reclaim much of their former assets and properties.
Later, the fall of France during the Second World War led to the seizure of the property of the French Rothschilds under German occupation. Despite having their bank restored to them at the end of the war, the French Rothschilds were powerless in 1982 as the family business was nationalised by the socialist government of newly elected President François Mitterrand.[40]
In addition, The New York Times wrote that the Rothschilds "grossly misjudged the opportunities directly across the Atlantic" and quoted Evelyn de Rothschild as saying that despite the accomplishments made by the various branches of the family in international high finance for over 200 years, "we never seized the initiative in America and that was one of the mistakes my family made."[41]
Hereditary titles
In 1816, four of the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild were elevated to the Austrian nobility by Emperor Francis I of Austria.[20] The remaining son, Nathan, was elevated in 1818. All of them were granted the Austrian hereditary title of Freiherr (baron) on 29 September 1822.[20] As a result, some members of the family used the nobiliary particle de or von before their surname to acknowledge the grant of nobility.
In 1847, Anthony de Rothschild was made a hereditary baronet of the United Kingdom.[42] In 1885, Sir Nathan Rothschild, 2nd Baronet, was granted the hereditary peerage title of Baron Rothschild in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[22] This title is currently held by the 5th Baron Rothschild.
Prominent lineal descendants of Mayer Amschel Rothschild include among many others:
Prominent marriages into the family include, among many others:
History
Foundations